3.00 pm – 4.15 pm GMT
Zoom link will be sent out on Saturday 1 November
Chapter 7 Katarche: The Line of Descent from Augury with Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum
In this talk, I shall give an update on the material that Geoffrey presented in Chapter 7, based on my further exploration on the origins of katarchic astrology and its divinatory underpinnings. In many ways Geoffrey was ahead of his time in writing about this material, since recent work, for example on oracle texts, has borne out some of his hypotheses. So I will talk about Babylonian practices such as astral omens and extispicy, as well as augury, oracles, and their relationship to ancient astrological practice. I’ll also talk about katarchē and kairos, the ‘right moment’ so important in divination. I’ll also present ancient examples of katarchic charts, including horary and decumbiture, if time permits.
I feel very fortunate that I was able to benefit from Geoffrey’s insights on katarchē and divination, both from MOA and from conversations with him, especially when I was working on a lecture on the origins of questions in astrology, which I first gave in 2020. Presenting on this chapter is particularly relevant for me now, since my lecture eventually turned into a paper that is about to be published on the 18th of December.
Dorian has practiced and taught astrology since 1992. She received her Ph.D. in 2009 from the Warburg Institute, London, and teaches postgraduates at the Sophia Centre, University of Wales. As an ancient historian, she writes on the history of astrology, astrology and divination, fate in antiquity, and astrology in ancient and medieval medicine. A selection of her works includes: Late Classical Astrology: Paulus Alexandrinus and Olympiodorus (translator and annotator) (2001); ‘Rising to the Occasion: Appearance, Emergence, Light and Divination in Hellenistic Astrology’, in The Imaginal Cosmos: Astrology, Divination and the Sacred (2007); ‘Arrows, Aiming and Divination: Astrology as a Stochastic Art’, in Divination – Perspectives for a New Millennium (2010); (with Micah Ross) ‘The Role of Egypt in the Development of the Horoscope’, in Egypt in Transition: Social and Relgious Development of Egypt in the First Millennium BCE (2010); The Daimon in Hellenistic Astrology: Origins and Influence (2016); (with Alexander Jones) ‘’P.Berl. 9825: An elaborate horoscope for 319 CE and its significance for Greek astronomical and astrological practice’, ISAW Papers 12 (2017); ‘Porphyry of Tyre on the Daimon, Birth and the Stars’, in Neoplatonic Demons and Angels (2018); ‘Divination and decumbiture: Katarchic astrology and Greek medicine’, in Divination and Knowledge in Greco-Roman Antiquity (2022). She won the Charles Harvey Award from the British AA in 2024.
Please read Chapter 7 in advance.
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